Pearls of Wisdom and Foolish Mutterings

A Light in the Darkness

We never know what awaits us from day to day. I never cease to be amazed at the curves life can throw at us.This morning I was leisurely making my way around WDC, planning my day, checking email with one eye on the television when I received the phone call from my daughter about our friend from church who had been shot. SHOT?!!

The word struck such a discordant note that I had to struggle to absorb it. SHOT?! How can that be? That word doesn't fit in the vocabulary of our lives. And the blows just kept coming. Shot. Four times. More? A man hiding in the bushes. No, two men. Shot by the first man. On the ground when the second man walked up and shot him twice in the back. His wife spared by a cell phone. She forgot it. Turned back to get it. Heard the shots from inside. Her husband on the ground. Not moving. Lifeflight. Shot twice in the neck. Surgeries. The bullets missed all major arteries. Thank you, God.

All day long, and into the night still, those of us who know and love our friend, David, struggle to make sense of what happened. But there is no sense to be made of it. So many prayed and God heard and answered our prayers. He was hurt badly, but David will survive. Still we wrestle with the knowledge that the gnarled hand of senseless violence reached into our ordered existence and grabbed one of our own. How can we make that fit on the canvas of our lives?

I don't know the answers to these questions. But what else are we to do but keep walking forward in the only way we know, as if we still recognize the path we walk upon. Because to do anything less would be to surrender to the madness in this world. Ultimately, I suppose the knowledge that the darkness in our world is ever-increasing is something we inherently know. We cling to the illusion that we live our lives above that darkness, but in truth, it surrounds us.

What keeps us from being devoured by the growing darkness? One thing. One precious thing. When the darkness overshadows us, we cry out to God and He brings us into His Light. He lights our path and He stays the hand of evil that seeks us out. We step into His Light and we are saved.